Pages

Friday, August 23, 2013

Man of Mediocre or was that Steel?

Yeah I know it's been months since the new Superman movie came out but I just have to complain about it. I know I complain about most movies I go see. Maybe one of these days I'll stop going to see them but until then I'll tell you what I think.

Upsides: The first 15 minutes or so of this movie rocked. Russell Crowe was the coolest Jor-El ever. Why wasn't this the whole movie? Krypton felt epic and alien and totally got me pumped for the rest of the movie.

Downsides: The rest of the movie. Superman/Clark was absent. Not necessarily physically absent but he was a super-non-presence on screen. And his abs weren't that great. The death of Jonathan Kent was the lamest death scene of all time. Saving that dog was the second worst scene in the movie. That slow motion disintegration isn't how people die in tornadoes. They get pulled screaming into the air and get cut to pieces by flying debris. Standing still and watching that happen makes you the worst son ever.

That one sub-commander Faora-Ul, or whoever, was fun to watch fight but she had like triple the screen time as Zod. I didn't much care for the semi-sympathetic bad guy direction everyone insists on taking these days. Can't anyone be a proper villain anymore? Evil for the sake of evil? Sometimes those who are the worst in this life have the least reason to be that way.

Why do people only have guns when superman isn't around? They have guns but decide to punch him in the face instead. Hey nice superpowers, bang, not that hard. Just one of the inconsistencies of this movie. How 'bout the "it will take years for us to adapt to this world and get all our cool super powers! Oh wait just got mine." That quote was Zod's (slight paraphrase but not really). He doesn't even ask you to kneel before him. Impostor! Plus no manly thigh high boots.

Destruction porn. This is something that afflicted Transformers, in particular the last one. How many tipping buildings will our heroes have to escape. How many buildings will Superman and Zod throw each other through before they realize it doesn't do anything. Half the time you can't even see what's going on and when you do you don't care. As far as Superman actually killing Zod, that didn't bother me because Superman has killed innumerable thousands fighting in Metropolis. Is every skyscraper in that city empty? Nope they're full of people getting crushed by a random flying Zod while filing paperwork or sitting on the can. Also what's with Zod's goatee when he decides to be evil. Really? And everyone's bulky armor was almost awesome but failed. How can they even move in those things?

The worst scene in the movie was the kiss. Gross. I mean awkward high school kiss gross. Or siblings kissing. Plus there was no real development of their relationship. They just did it 'cause they were supposed to. The sparse attempts at humor fell flat every time. They clashed with the tone of the movie like fluorescent shirts from the 80's. And that was really how the whole movie felt. I think my brother summed it up fairly well when he said that it pretty much followed the same format as a musical but instead of dance numbers there were flashbacks. I think Christopher Nolan forgot he wasn't directing this movie and so it really had two directors that stepped all over each other.

All in all this movie was mediocre. The visuals were okay as long as they were krypton related. In the end I'm still waiting for a Superman movie that is actually super.